When Duncan Chandler launched his Ovenclean franchise just over three years ago, little did the former financial services manager realise that his business would become so successful he would have to consider expanding.
“I’m constantly busy and will soon be struggling to handle any more new work,” he explains. “I’ve exceeded the £5,000 mark for monthly income and although I’m delighted with that, if I am to continue to grow, there’s really only one way forward.”
When Duncan was made redundant for the second time from his role as a senior manager for a lending company, he didn’t fancy having to move back to London to find a job and had lost faith in the idea that employment meant security. He therefore decided this was the perfect opportunity to invest in the right business and become self-employed.
“When I discovered Ovenclean, I was immediately impressed,” Duncan says. “The franchise looked like great value, I could see the potential marketplace and understood how the business model worked. Better still, when I contacted them, Ovenclean were friendly and informative and invited me to visit their head office to meet the team.”
Duncan then arranged to go out on the road with an established Ovenclean franchisee for the day to see first-hand how the business operated.
“I was more than happy with everything,” he says. “I felt I’d given myself the best chance of success by investing in Ovenclean and I’ve been proved right.”
Duncan got off to a great start and business has been booming ever since. Currently he has over 1,000 regular, repeat order customers on his database, some of them already on their fourth clean.
“Word of mouth is a very important part of gaining new business,” he explains. “The vast majority of my new enquiries come through satisfied customers. Once people see the fantastic results, they just can’t believe how good their ovens look - invariably they book the next clean on the spot and tell all their friends.”
Not one to let the grass grow under his feet, Duncan still regularly delivers leaflets to attract new business: “Recently I leafleted a small rural village with my son. I gave out approximately 90 leaflets and off the back of this I booked eight cleans. Ovenclean is a simple business to run and if you follow the formula you will be successful.”
In addition to the domestic market, Duncan has struck up key relationships with both Leicester and Loughborough universities, as well as various student landlords, and is now responsible for cleaning a wide portfolio of student housing.
These days Duncan is also a trainer for Ovenclean, providing support for both new and existing franchisees through their launch and beyond. As well as this, he volunteers as a representative on the Ovenclean franchise forum, where franchisees work on projects with the senior management team for the benefit of the network as a whole.
When asked, Duncan’s only regret is that he didn’t join Ovenclean five or 10 years earlier:
“I’m enjoying being an Ovenclean franchisee. I easily earn what I did before as a financial manager and I get huge satisfaction from what I do.
“My life now is infinitely less stressed - I have more control and flexibility. It’s very different from being a small cog in a large organisation. Previously I was demoralised and constantly looking over my shoulder to see where the axe might fall next. Now I run my own show, feel more secure than I did in employment and am so much happier about my future.”
Ovenclean is the longest established domestic oven cleaning franchise in the UK, providing specialist oven cleaning services to a large, virtually untapped marketplace, including not only domestic customers, but also commercial work such as schools, lettings agencies and hotels.
Franchisees operate from professionally liveried vans and so benefit from low overheads and high flexibility. The top quality, powerful yet safe Ovenclean product range, exclusive to franchisees, effectively cleans ovens and hobs, Agas, ranges and barbecues, restoring them to pristine condition within a matter of a few hours.
For more information call 0800 988 5434 or visit http://www.ovenclean .com. Investment: £14,995 (plus VAT).